Bill of Rights Day Book Festival

Monday, December 15, 2014, 10 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Admission: $5 / program or $15 for an all-day pass
Reservations Recommended: Call 215-409-6700 or order an all-day pass online. See below for tickets to individual programs.

For groups of 15 or more, contact Group Sales at 215-409-6800 or [email protected] to book your group.

Join the National Constitution Center on Bill of Rights Day for the museum’s first ever book festival featuring four fascinating discussions with several acclaimed authors.

Justice Brennan’s Fight to Preserve the Legacy of New York Times v. Sullivan (10 - 11 a.m.)

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the case that changed the First Amendment, has protected the freedom of expression for the past 50 years. Join First Amendment lawyer Lee Levine and veteran Supreme Court reporter Stephen Wermiel as they tell the story of Justice Brennan's struggle to stop efforts to overturn this landmark case. Click here to get tickets for this event only, or click here to purchase all-day pass.

Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of the Left and Right (11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.)

Conservative intellectual Yuval Levin and the National Constitution Center's Jeffrey Rosen explore the origins of the left/right divide by examining the views of the men who best represented each side of that debate at its outset: Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. Levin and Rosen will bring the conversation to today’s political discourse—on issues ranging from abortion to welfare, education, economics, and beyond. Click here to get tickets for this event only, or click here to purchase all-day pass.

John Marshall: The Chief Justice Who Saved the Nation (2:30 - 3:30 p.m.)

Award-winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals how John Marshall emerged from the Revolutionary War’s bloodiest battlefields to become one of the nation’s most important Founding Fathers. As the longest-serving Chief Justice in American history, Marshall transformed the Supreme Court from an irrelevant appeals court into the powerful and controversial branch of government that Americans today either revere or criticize. Click here to get tickets for this event only, or click here to purchase all-day pass.